Police investigating after war memorial vandalized

Toronto police are investigating an incident of vandalism at a war memorial that was discovered just hours after Remembrance Day services.

It happened at the Victory Peace war memorial in Coronation Park, at Lake Shore Blvd. and Strachan Ave.

The words “Canada will burn praise Allah” were written in capital letters on a portion of the memorial.

The words appear to have been written in black marker.

The vandalism was noticed late Sunday by a citizen walking through the park.

Police said city officials had been notified, and a worker arrived on the scene late Sunday to clean away the graffiti.

“I think it’s sick,” Gord Pearce, past president and current treasurer of the Royal Canadian Legion #11, told CP24. “Most of the people have died. This is what it’s all about. This is what memorials are there for.”

The bronze monument was constructed in the mid-1990s by sculptor John McEwen.

“It’s stupid vandalism in the sense that anyone who looked at the memorial would have seen it was a specific kind of memorial,” McEwen told CP24 in a telephone interview Sunday evening.

“It recognized the 50th anniversary of the Second World War. The outcome of that war is today’s many languages spoken in Toronto.”

Police said they do not have any suspects, and asked that witnesses call police or Crime Stoppers.